LIMP BIZKITChocolate St*rfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water
Flip/Interscope

Back before Fred Durst revealed himself as the Antikurt, he listed four
"perfect records" for a Spin profile: Nevermind, Ten,
Aenima, and Nothing's Shocking. Perfect--Nirvana for cred,
Pearl Jam for reach, Tool for stupidity posing as underground, Jane's
Addiction for ambition posing as transgression. All that's missing is hip
hop--which for Bizkit, whatever its roots in Durst's grayboy
humanism and blackface sexism, turns out to be about market
positioning--and Smashing Pumpkins for ambition indistinguishable
from egomania.

You need at least two ambitions in there because the truly new
thing about Durst is the candor of his will to power. True, hip
hoppers often comport themselves as black capitalists first,
artists second. But black capitalism is marginal by definition.
Durst's isn't. However symbolic his Interscope vice-presidency may
prove, his rise to the top of the center was a striking piece of
image-making for a trigger-happy loudmouth who'd just ridden his
second album into Hollywood from the Jacksonville he'd sworn never
to leave. Mewl about "mooks" all you want, ring Durst up for
inciting to rape at Woodstock 99, but recognize that he shares
those crimes against progress with America itself. In his ambition
he's an innovator.

In his rap-metal he's less so--just a skilled professional
whose albums keep getting better by the standards of the pop
populism his power trip assumes. The funky crunch and lively
aggression of the trifecta that sets up 1999's Significant Other,
"Just Like Us" to "Nookie" to "Break Stuff," has plenty of
competition and no equal from Korn to Papa Roach. And when
guitarist Wes Borland, in his role as Durst's artistic and social
conscience, claims that Chocolate St*rfish and the Hot Dog Flavored
Water adds songwriting to the metal of 1997's Three Dollar Bill
Y'All, he shrewdly ignores what it subtracts: sludge from the crypt
and crappy MCing. The sound is now clearer than on either
predecessor, the rapping likewise. And here come Jane's Addiction
and Smashing Pumpkins--this is a slicker, grander record than
Significant Other. So while Borland's guitar is up front, it's
longer on arpeggiated decorative tension than chorded cathartic
release, it's often reduced to keyb imitations, and the pervasive
echo evokes more be-yoo-tee than mystery or menace. Metal my cherry
starfish. It's only one hour-plus disc, but given the title I find
it hard to believe Durst isn't thinking Melon Collie and the
Infinite Sadness. The VP clearly expects to break four or five
singles off the sucker.

Because this dream isn't delusional, the album definitely
qualifies as an improvement--professionally, as broadcast-ready
product. But humanists will note with relief that Durst has gotten
over the old girlfriend whose supposed sexual misadventures
supposedly inspired the misogynist spew that ended up all over the
topless hoydens of Woodstock 99. There's no "Nookie," no "No Sex,"
no "he-said she-said bullshit." The spleen of the punchy lead
single "My Generation" is indeed generational, as in "The captain
is drunk/Your world is titanic." Two obvious airplay candidates are
spirited rap fusions a little trickier than "N 2 Gether Now"--the
poppy, Xzibit-assisted "Getcha Groove On," in which Durst hookily
IDs himself as "a real motherfucker from around the way," and the
Redman-assisted, Swizz Beats-produced "Urban Assault Vehicle" mix
of "Rollin'." And then there's Bizkit's first romantic ballad, a
doubt-tinged, medium-tempo sure shot called "The One": "I believe
that you and me we could be/So happy and free inside a world of
misery." For a fifth, bet on "I'll Be OK" or the Scott Weiland-produced
"Hold On," breakup laments whose agonized vulnerability is
worthy of Justin Timberlake.

And that's it for women here, except for the name-dropping
"Livin' It Up"--and, indirectly, "Full Nelson"'s disgraceful plaint
about "people who perfectly rape us with talking," which utilizes
a high-anxiety whine too prominent on a record that features more,
and I quote, "why's everybody always pickin' on me" than a big shot
like Fred Durst should need. Who's the vice-president mad at? Who
else? Playa-haters, plus idol turned Bizkit basher Trent Reznor,
who inspires a tirade called "Hot Dog." Given which gender usually
gets raped, this is probably just as well. But it's tedious in a
way rock's ambitious and insecure so often are. Maybe we'd all be
better off artistically if Durst continued to confront, however
pathologically, the pain he shares with the guys who love him.
Instead he's playing a playa, a fast-lane success fantasy for
"mooks" as surely as Christina Aguilera is for the girls they fear
and crave. What a bitch.